Waiting for the World to End
by eleventy7
Summary: Draco Malfoy always makes logical choices and Harry Potter always makes sacrifices. These two facts collide on a beach in winter and change in a summer storm. Contains HPDM, if you look hard enough.
1. Sea

His own noisy breathing fills his ears as his sneakers pound on the shore. He runs close to the waves where the sand is firm and a dark slick brown, like a wet dog. Shells crunch underfoot as he grunts, breathing out the seconds and timing himself. Overhead, the stars begin to melt away as an overcast dawn breaks.

He collapses, as always, by the withered knoll of a tree. It overhangs the bank where the sidewalk drops abruptly away into soft, white sand. He clasps his side and allows himself the luxury of deep, heavy breaths.

It's getting into the heart of winter now. It is the twenty-seventh of December, and Draco Malfoy is determined to bring in the new year with a new job: Auror. He looks ruefully at his arms. He is slender, and, it seems, destined to be forever slender. No matter how much he trains, he develops a sleek, svelte physique instead of the solid muscles he longs for.

He has rested enough. He gets to his feet and begins, once more, with a slow jog.

* * *

He gets up at three a.m and doesn't want to die.

People always seem to die at three a.m and he does not want to join their ranks. So he stumbles from bed, pulling the soft covers away slowly and knocking over a glass of water from his bedside table. He cleans it up carefully, slowly, in the dark. He doesn't want to turn the lamp on. Light burns mystery away.

He pads into the cold dark kitchen. The tiles are freezing to his feet. He ignores the coffee-maker. He ignores the toaster, his slippers, the shower, the light switches. These are ordinary things that will not be part of his morning. These are things that are meant for eight o'clock, when parents pack children's lunches and businessmen catch the morning express to work, their newspapers folded neatly under their arms. These are things for sun and busyness and people.

Harry doesn't like people much.

He goes to the front door, pushing it open and jamming his sneakers on. They are grainy against his bare feet; perhaps some would find the sensation uncomfortable but Harry doesn't mind it. He goes for a walk now, past the empty bus stops and silent streets. He doesn't know where he wants to go but he doesn't mind. His heart leads the way.

And then he finds himself on the beach, which he has not visited since three years ago when Ron was still alive and everything was beautiful. There was a summer, once, when they had all sat on this beach eating ice-creams...

Harry allows the memory to float away. He doesn't need to think about the past right now, not the past with all its mistakes and events and stupid little things and stupid people.

Yes, he is right here now, isn't he? Yes. He is walking in the sand and watching the waves. And Merlin, they are beautiful, those waves. How has he never noticed them before? A beautiful froth of white crests slowly along a wave, each side of it, until it meets perfectly in the middle and crashes down in a perfect crescendo. Harry stares, mesmerised, as the wave fades to nothing. The foam edges slowly towards his feet.

He blinks, then kneels suddenly in the wet sand. Here is an enormous amount of perfect abalone shells. Harry likes to beach-comb, likes to search shores for treasure, and he has never seen so many shells. He examines them slowly, carefully. But he never picks one up.

* * *

Draco has reached the withered tree again. He will finish now, he decides. Do some stretches and walk home. Dawn has not completely arrived but it will soon. The morning bus service will roar along the beach. Residents will begin to walk their dogs and go for runs. School children will frequent the sidewalk, pausing occasionally to run onto the beach.

He casts his gaze along the beach. He never pauses to admire it, really, but it is quite a nice place. In the grey half-dawn light, he can see it properly now: the houses on the hill, the lone pontoon bobbing in the bay, the dilapidated yacht club on the very end of the beach...

And a lone beach-comber. Draco observes for a moment as the figure kneels down slowly in the sand and gazes at something. There are never many shells on this beach, at least nothing interesting. The beach-comber should have saved his sleep. Draco grins to himself.

The grin slowly makes way for a frown. The lone person stands up slowly, gazes at the waves for a long time - so long Draco thinks they must be praying or something - and then slowly walks forwards until the waves begin to wash over their sneakers.

* * *

Harry gazes at the abalone shells for some time. The beautiful glistening curves, the shining patterns, silver and gleaming like spilt oil. He stares at the waves, the foaming peaks and beyond them to the dark ocean on the horizon.

That ocean looks so beautiful, so inviting that Harry finds himself desperately wanting to walk into it. To just keep walking. Yes. Just keep walking.

So he does.

* * *

The beach-comber is up to their waist now.

Draco doesn't like it. It isn't sinister, or unsettling. There is just something strange in the way the figure never looks down at the waves, always looks ahead. They walk steadily, slowly, their chin raised, never looking back.

The water has reached their chest now.

Draco gets slowly to his feet, sand caking along his legs where they have been resting.

"Hey!" he calls out, breaking the silence. "_Hey!_"

A wave crests over the person's head. Draco stands for a moment, his heart thundering, blood racing through his veins.

He breaks into a run.

* * *

Harry smiles.

Water fills his world but he doesn't notice. The winter has been particularly biting but Harry can't feel it. He can't feel anything. He can't see or hear or smell or breathe but that's okay because everything is beautiful and perfect in this silent world.

He opens his eyes and looks at it all, at the dark water and past it, a smudge of light where dawn is breaking through the heavy grey clouds.

And then, a sudden flurry of bubbles.

Something is dark and thrashing to his left. He catches pale glimpses and gazes calmly as bright pinpricks of pain spatter across his vision.

And then, there is air and noise and light and he gasps and splutters, hearing a voice as if from far away.

"...what the hell...doing...alright? Are....okay...?"

_No_, Harry wants to say. _I am not okay. Does it look like I'm okay?_

But he doesn't. He finds he doesn't want to say anything.

So he lets himself be taken ashore.

* * *

Draco breathes hard as he half-drags the unresponsive person onto the beach. What the hell had the man been doing? Why had he just walked into the ocean, fully dressed? Was he crazy? Or just something he did, some quirk of his?

"Merlin," Draco says, forgetting for a moment it was a possible Muggle he was dealing with, "are you alright?"

The man says nothing. He merely sits in the sand examining minute grains. Then he rises to his feet.

"Hey, where are you going? You were under a pretty long time, maybe -" Draco stops short. Dawn has finally blossomed completely. The man's face is illuminated. There is a moment's silence.

Thoughts rummage through Draco's mind, searching for morals. A moment ago, he had been quite concerned by this man who had apparently set out for a fully-clothed swim. Now he wants to walk away, say something acerbic, humiliate Harry. But nothing springs to mind. Every insult he can think of doesn't work; it reeks of school-aged pettishness. It doesn't belong here, in this soft strange dawn. His brain goes into auto-pilot and finishes his sentence for him.

" - you should go to the hospital and check for fluid in your lungs."

Harry stares at him. Draco has his back to the rising sun; his face has been in shadow until now when he turns.

"Draco Malfoy," Harry states as though confirming something in his mind.

"Did you hear what I said? You should go to the doctor."

"Why?"

"To check for fluid in -"

"So?"

Harry shrugs, an odd little half-shrug, and begins walking away.

"Where are you going?" Draco calls.

"Home."

"Where's home?"

Harry stares for a while into the distance. The row of lights from a distant city are still visible in the dawn, like a beacon for the wandering and the weary. Then he turns abruptly.

"Where's home?" Draco repeats, and he finds himself treating Harry like a complete stranger. Perhaps because he is. His eyes, so full of fiery emotion at Hogwarts now gaze, unreadable, at inanimate things. A lumpy string of seaweed, a broken aglet on Draco's shoelace. His lips, always spitting out angry rubbish or nauseous sentiment, are now still and silent. Even his countenance has changed - his hair is now sleek and straight with water, his eyes devoid of spectacles, his skin bronzed. A strip of tiny freckles crosses his nose. He looks so...un-Harry.

"Where's home?" Draco repeats for a third time but Harry merely ambles off. The other man hurries to catch up. "It's freezing, you might catch hypothermia." This idea latches onto him suddenly - visions of Harry dying and accusatory fingers being pointed at Draco. "Listen, take my jacket at least." He opens his mouth to add 'please don't return it' but thinks the better of it.

Harry gazes at something just past Draco's left ear; Draco turns and sees the city lights fading into the daylight. A dogwalker makes their way down the steps at the far end of the beach. People are beginning to sleepily emerge, rising to greet the new day and all the horrors and dreams it will hold for them.

* * *

Harry listens to a song in his head. He can't remember the title, only the lyrics.

_Fly the ocean to the silver city_

_Has anybody seen the boy in gray?_

_See the dark to the evermore star_

_Stretched on from September to May..._

It goes round and round like a nonsensical verse and Harry stares at the tiny pebbles below his squelching sneakers, cemented forever into gray stone.

And then he is home.

* * *

Harry departs, turning onto another road. Draco glances up at the sign. Peppermint Drive. With that little redheaded girl, he supposes. Except she wouldn't be a girl now, she'd be a woman. And most likely a mother. Peppermint Drive. Yes. The perfect name for Harry's perfect street and perfect life.

Draco continues on to his own home on the main road, kicking off his sneakers in the front hall.

"You're leaving a trail of sand through the house again," a voice sniffs from nearby, female and distinctly chiding. "And who, I wonder, will clean it up?"

"I don't know." Draco goes into the kitchen and prepares himself breakfast.

"It's a wonder you don't have a house-elf for that. You've got some mail, by the way. Bills. I don't know how you let them spiral out of control."

Draco ignores the stack of bills, pulling a tub of butter from the fridge.

"Look at all these Muggle devices. I don't know why you have them when you can just as easily get by without these great big ugly things."

There is a long silence. Draco butters his toast and sits at the breakfast table, reaching for the paper. Narcissa tugs it from his hand.

"I've been nagging all morning," she says gently, "and you haven't said a word. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Didn't your little jog go so well?"

Draco knows Narcissa is deliberately baiting him; he takes his training extremely seriously and is always seized by fury when his mother refers to it as his 'little activities'.

He shakes his head. He is pre-occupied, thinking of a boy walking towards the horizon.

Narcissa frowns, genuinely worried.

"If I've outstayed my welcome, darling -"

"Of course not." Draco takes a bite of toast.

"If your father -"

"We haven't argued."

Narcissa sits back and sighs, observing her only child. It is on the tip of her tongue to say, y_ou remind me of your father sometimes_, but she doesn't. She knows how infuriated he gets on the subject.

Instead, she sighs and pours herself an orange juice.

* * *

As soon as Harry gets home, he takes his sneakers off by the front door. Rain is already beginning to spatter lightly across his face and he stands for a moment, letting the rain join the sea-water on his face and body.

And then he opens the door and stands, waiting in silence, waiting for something...

There is a clink of cutlery against a plate in the kitchen.

He closes the door gently, silently, and steals his way down the hallway, not stopping until he reaches the bathroom. There he takes off his sodden clothes and stands under the shower until the water runs cold.

* * *

"Harry?"

He looks up, staring into the girl's concerned face.

"Harry, are you alright?"

He nods, managing to find a word to mumble. "Yes."

"Okay. You were just in the shower a long time, that's all. I worry about you."

"I'm fine."

Hermione touches the bundle of wet clothes in his arms. "Why are your clothes all wet?"

"I'm doing some laundry." The lie comes easily to his lips; he doesn't blink.

"Well, they're soaked. It looks like you forgot to leave them on spin cycle again."

He nods. He can't think of anything to say. He just wants to go to his room and crawl into bed and start the day again.

But he doesn't. Besides, Hermione will need him today.

And everyone else.

* * *

It's the most important day of Draco's life. If he gets this job, everything will be perfect. He looks at himself in the mirror, frowning. His mother comes up behind him.

"Draco, I still don't understand."

He folds his robes into a small bag. He wants to use the Muggle transport system to get there.

"Draco, darling, you don't need a job -"

"Yes I do."

"I can give you money, you have a whole inheritance waiting -"

Narcissa stops abruptly as emotion flashes through her son's eyes, too quick for her to catch. But she can sense the danger anyway.

"Good luck," she murmurs although she doesn't mean it. She doesn't want her child to be an Auror. Aurors get killed. Aurors get hurt. Aurors sometimes never come home, not even in a pine box.

"Thanks," he says and turns away.

* * *

Somebody, somewhere, is practising on their violin.

Harry listens to the high, fluttering notes. It's pretty. Not in a well-trained, classical way. In a rough, beginner's sort of way. Despite the pauses and off notes, there's something brash and raw and bold about it. The practising violinist isn't afraid of mistakes.

Nor is Harry.

He draws a circle in the sand by his sneakers, mesmerised by the way the spilled grains spread under his fingers. Big bold strokes. Like the violin.

He's sitting on the front steps. He'd come out here to do something, he can't remember what. But it's nice, with the big pale moon and the waves crashing in the distance and he thinks maybe he'll just stay here until...until it all ends.

Yes. Until it all ends.

There's light spilling out the window behind him. Laughter, loud noises. The door opens suddenly behind Harry.

"Oh! You scared me half to death. What are you doing out here?"

Harry considers the question for a while. His mind forms an answer.

"Watching...watching the stars."

"Oh. We're watching a movie, if you want to come inside?"

There's a pause. Harry ignores Ginny, gazing into the sky. Presently, she speaks again.

"Well...as long as you're alright. It's sort of really cold out here, I might go back in. Don't freeze to death," Ginny warns, retreating hastily into the warm light. Harry doesn't reply. The temperature is low, very low, but he can't feel it.

He can't feel anything.

* * *

Harry has a house full of people.

They came after Ron. Yes. That's right. At first there was just Harry and Ron. After spending seven years sharing sleeping quarters, they couldn't wait to spend time apart. Ron had a flat in Leeds. Harry had an apartment in Kingsbury. And after six months apart, Harry thought perhaps Ron's snoring wasn't so bad after all. Ron decided that maybe sharing a room with his best friend hadn't actually been that annoying.

So they pooled their funds and bought a house in far away, in a little place with a little sign saying Peppermint Drive. And it was perfect.

But now there was no Ron.

And after Ron went away, the people came. Oh, the people. So many of them. They all had smiling faces which was sort of funny because Harry hadn't smiled for a long time.

But now he has a house full of people, and they smile and talk but he doesn't feel like he's really there. No. He's not there. He's somewhere else.

Underneath the ocean, perhaps.

* * *

Draco pushes a sliver of roast beef around his plate. His mother watches from the corner of her eye.

"How did the interview go?"

Draco shrugs listlessly. A lone pea balances delicately on the end of his fork.

"Draco, for heaven's sake talk to me. I'm your mother. I'm supposed to -"

"The water."

Narcissa stops, staring at her only son. He ignores her. He has never ignored her before, never dropped a non sequitur in mid-conversation. He has never been so distant. She holds out a hand but he withdraws.

"The water?" she asks. "What about the water?"

He stands up and walks away.

"What? Darling! What are you talking about -"

But he is gone.

* * *

The water. The boy and the water and the boy is walking into it, a strong silhouette standing alone. The sun blossoms across his cheekbones and Draco waits on the sand, waits until the boy's hair is wet and silken, waits until he disappears from sight.

Then he gets slowly to his feet and follows him.

He walks into those icy depths, he walks into the opaque blue ocean of his childhood beach holidays, and everything is beautiful underwater.

And then he wakes, gasping for breath.

And the dream happens every night.

* * *

There's a willow tree by Harry's home.

Ron was never fond of it. He could never forgive willow trees, not after second year.

But Harry sits in it now, running a long, stringy branch through his fingers. The stem catches roughly on his skin but the leaves are soft and silken like a time-worn secret.

Harry hasn't got a secret.

Just a head full of memories that are too bitterly beautiful to share.


	2. Shore

Draco dredges himself through the door, muddy laces trailing behind him. His mother hovers nearby, watching her son anxiously.

"You were gone an awfully long time, I thought something must've happened -"

"Nothing happened," Draco murmurs. Nothing happened. No boy appeared on the horizon. The beach had stretched on, a lonely tundra of grey sand and winter skies.

Narcissa says nothing, only watches him. She sweeps her long hair over one shoulder. Sometimes she wishes her son looked a little less like Lucius. Looking at Draco hurts sometimes.

He begins preparing toast, as always. Narcissa is nervous. He would have noticed, she thinks ruefully, but for the past week he's been even more distant than usual, a strange sort of abstractness to his face, as though his flesh and bone are slowly, subtly changing.

He reaches for the post on the table, frowning. There's only one bill and a catalogue. He turns to his mother.

"Is this all that came today?"

She pauses for a brief moment. Narcissa, who can smooth over any situation. She who can let lovely lies spill from her calm lips. She has lied to her sister, her husband, the Dark Lord, but she cannot lie to her son with his serious face and unreadable eyes.

He catches the pause and holds out a hand, his brow furrowing. She sighs and gives him three letters.

The first one is from Pansy and he exhales at once, a big rushing breath, and sits down to read it with his breakfast. Evidently the news is good; his face softens and he almost smiles a few times. Narcissa knows better than to ask to read it. Draco carefully guards everything in his life.

"Pansy says hello. She's almost finished her apprenticeship," he says at last, laying down the letter. Narcissa accepts this tidbit of information with a graceful smile that slowly fades as Draco reaches for the next letter.

He recognises the large, loopy writing at once, although his face gives nothing away. He scans the letter quickly and folds it away.

"Father is well," he says. Narcissa tiptoes into the subject that is always echoing in her mind.

"Perhaps a visit -"

"Maybe," Draco says curtly. His mother runs a slender hand through her hair and changes the topic.

"The last letter, darling. Don't forget that."

He gives his mother a sharp look. He had nearly forgotten the small parchment envelope.

"It came by owl," Narcissa says. Draco's lips thin slightly.

"I told them I expected it to be delivered by Muggle post," he says tautly, picking it up and opening it in one fluid movement. He reads the contents quickly, then throws it down.

"I'd better get ready for work," he says, pulling back his chair and disappearing into the hallway. Narcissa waits in the silent kitchen, listening to a clock separate the seconds. Sometimes she feels like he isn't her son anymore. He's somebody else, a stranger with Lucius's temperament and her compassion, but a stranger nevertheless.

She picks up the parchment.

_Dear Candidate,_

_You have been selected for the preliminary group of applicants. We congratulate you on your success thus far and hope to see you on the 22nd of January at 0800 for the second round of interviews._

_Regards,_

_Mathilda Wandsworth_

_Head of Magical Defence_

She sighs, pushing the letter away as though it is a virus. Her son will be an Auror and her heart will be broken.

* * *

"Harry?"

He looks down. Neville is gazing up at him.

"What are you doing up there?"

"Waiting," Harry says automatically, safely nestled in the willow tree. Neville frowns.

"What are you waiting for?"

"The world."

Neville laughs. Harry doesn't.

"The world is already here," Neville says.

Harry doesn't think so. He feels as though he is in a little bubble, floating through space and time, waiting for a world. Any world. A different world.

Neville sits at the bottom of the tree and talks about things. Everything. The shells he found down at the beach. Interesting plant specimens. The Quidditch ladder (Chudley Cannons are at the bottom of it). Hermione's new haircut (it's awful but everyone's too scared to say). Seamus mixed his colours in the washing machine (his dress robes came out bright pink). George put an Exploding Pear in the fruitbowl (it scared Ginny half to death). Dean was having a career change. Luna had sent a postcard from France, a most peculiar one. Everyone had a good laugh over it.

Neville leaves after a while. He thinks Harry doesn't listen. He feels sorry for him.

But he's wrong. Harry was listening. He listens to everything everybody says to him, more intently than he ever did before.

He needs to listen to them, to fill the parts of his mind that aren't there anymore. The parts that used to be able to make idle gossip and think stupid little thoughts and smile when people wanted him to and everything else that used to be ordinary and lovely.

After a while, he climbs down from the tree and goes to look at Luna's postcard. On the front is a picture of a field filled with giant sunflowers.

_Dear Harry,_

_I like the sunflowers. They remind me of weddings._

_I haven't bought you a souvenir. I thought you might like some space instead:_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_.  
_

_Love, Luna._

He smiles for the first time in weeks. Suddenly he loves Luna so much that it nearly hurts.

* * *

"Fuck."

Draco is sitting under the gnarled tree, taking in deep steadying breaths. Dawn is spreading, the sun slowly unfurling its fingers to stroke the sky. He's just run half the length of the beach and he is already tired. Perhaps he's not training enough. Perhaps he won't make the preliminary rounds.

But as he is considering these undesirable outcomes under the withered branches, he sees him.

Harry, standing in the waves. Just his silken head visible.

He swears. He jumps to his feet. He wavers for a moment. A brilliant ray of unexpected winter sun suddenly spreads across the choppy waters and he begins to walk slowly, sedately into the water. Calmness seeps into his soul.

But oh, the water is cold, so cold! He feels as though his bones will freeze and shatter, his heart will ice over and frost will coat his veins. He forces himself to keep walking until he is level with Harry, his body violently shivering in an effort to keep warm.

"Potter! It's bloody freezing!" he shouts.

Harry turns and looks at him.

"Oh," he says. And that is all. Nothing more. Just a quiet, apathetic "oh" as though Harry has only just realised what he is doing but doesn't care anyway. Draco's presence does not seem to surprise him.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Draco demands crossly.

"I'm...the water," Harry says. "The water wanted me."

"I'm going back to shore before I freeze to death," Draco says shortly. "You can stay out here and catch pneumonia. Don't you dare tell anyone I was here. They'll only blame me and say I tried to kill you or -"

"Oh," Harry says again. Draco frowns.

"Potter. Don't tell anyone I was here."

The other boy says nothing.

"Nobody can know I was here!" Draco snaps. Harry finally looks at him, blinking.

"Oh," he says. "Oh. Okay. Sorry. Yes. Nobody."

Draco looks at Harry for a moment. He wants to ask so many questions suddenly and he doesn't know why. He is mad at Harry. He is mad at himself, at his inability to stop the way Harry affects him. He is standing in the middle of the ocean in winter and he doesn't know why, only that it's Harry's fault and that makes him hot with anger. He wants to say to Harry, _stop. Stop involving me. Go away. _

But he doesn't. He simply walks out of the water.

Harry follows.

* * *

Draco is shivering with cold. His fingers and toes are sluiced with pain, a terrible needling pain, and he cannot stop his body twitching.

Harry stands beside him. He does not even have goosebumps.

"It's freezing," Draco says.

"Is it?" Harry says, mindlessly picking up handfuls of wet sand and letting them clump between his fingers.

"Yes. Stop going into the ocean."

Harry turns his face to the city lights on the other side of the bay. Sun caresses his hair. The dogwalker appears at the end of the beach.

"Hey. Where are you going?" Draco says sharply as Harry begins walking away. "Don't you live the other way?"

But Harry is already gone.

* * *

"You're soaking wet!" Narcissa covers her mouth; an oddly dramatic gesture, Draco thinks. Suddenly he is too tired, his bones heavy with cold and something else; a remnant of the Battle, when all he wanted to do was sit down and scream mindlessly until all the noise and rage and blood had gone.

"Some moron keeps walking into the ocean," Draco says. "I have to keep dragging him out."

Narcissa stares. She loves her son dearly, she knows him well, but he does not save people. She has no illusions about Draco's strength of character. He is selfish and always has been. Other people and their problems never concern him; he has a heartlessness that worries Narcissa.

"Oh dear," she says. "Can't he swim?"

"I don't know. He just walks into the ocean, clothes and all. He doesn't even feel the cold," Draco says sourly, peeling off his shirt and draping it over Narcissa's favourite chair, in front of the fire. She watches the dark seawater seep into the upholstery and says nothing.

"I'll let him drown next time," he says, standing by the fire. Water pools on the floorboards around him. Yes, Narcissa thinks. There is her son. He would let him drown. Draco is not saying it to be flippant or sarcastic. He is stating it like a fact.

"The poor boy," Narcissa says. "He needs professional help. You should tell him -"

"I'm not getting involved," Draco says curtly. "I've got enough on my plate. If he dies it will be one less problem for me. I'm tiring of these constant disruptions to my training. Where's my work clothes?"

"Draco, dear, if he's suicidal then he clearly needs to seek professional help," Narcissa continues. She talks on but Draco isn't listening.

Suicide. He never once contemplated that option.

Harry Potter was walking into the ocean every day to die.

* * *

Hermione is holding a daffodil and crying. Neville and Ginny are comforting her.

Harry stands to one side.

"It's awful." Hermione is sobbing. "Oh God, it's awful."

Behind her, Ron's grave is covered with flowers. Some are wilted, blackened things, returning to the ground from whence they sprung. Others are bright and new, fresh with life. Against the snow, a red tulip blossoms like a bloodstain.

Ginny hugs Hermione. Neville murmurs meaningless things, the whispers carrying on the wind. _It'll be okay...don't worry..._

Above the flowers, a marble gravestone marks Ron's final resting place. Harry observes it with detachment, letting his gaze fall from the pretty vase of flowers atop of it to the scrawled letters, sprayed on with thin black paint.

_VOLDEMORT WILL RISE AGAIN_

_HERE LIES MUGGLE-LOVING SCUM_

_DUMBLEDORE'S CHILDREN WILL SHARE HIS FATE_

Hermione is being led away, tears still falling afresh. Harry stares at the vandalised gravestone.

"Come on Harry," Neville says, taking him by the arm as if Harry is an invalid. "Don't upset yourself."

Harry turns to him and smiles. Neville is taken aback.

"It's nice, isn't it," he says. "They think of us as Dumbledore's children. I like that."

The other boy stumbles back, unnerved, but Harry doesn't notice. He adds another tulip to the grave and stands in silence.

* * *

Fifty miles away from Hermione, another woman also weeps for somebody she loves.

Narcissa tries to control herself. Draco is standing away from her. He does not like tears. He rarely gets emotional. He treats feelings like they are diseases: prevention is the cure.

"I'm sorry darling," Narcissa says through tears. Draco studies a sign in the distance and says nothing. She embarrasses him and it makes her want to cry more. "I just have the feeling I'll never see you again."

"You're only going back to the manor," Draco says briskly, his face and voice belying nothing of the manor and all its memories.

"Perhaps you can visit."

"I'm rather busy these days."

Narcissa hesitates then hands Draco a scrap of parchment before sweeping him up into a desperate hug and leaving. She is too afraid to look back.

Draco unfolds the parchment.

_Azkaban Visiting Times (HIGH-SECURITY WARD. Immediate family only.)_

He throws it into the nearest bin and walks away.

* * *

There is a dresser in the guest room in Draco's house.

There are five drawers in the dresser.

In the fifth drawer, there is a large, tattered envelope.

In the envelope, there are letters.

Oh, so many letters. Narcissa only wishes she could have saved more.

Every time she stays with her son she watches him receive letters, read them, throw them out like one would throw away dying flowers that no longer serve their purpose.

Every time she takes the letters from the rubbish, gently unfolds them, and collects them in the dresser drawer.

It hurts her, the letters. Every one is a reminder of the family torn apart, of a husband alone in a prison cell, of a son alone in a cell of his own making. Her Draco, whom she loves so much, and who blocks her out so coldly, so effectively. He lives alone, her son, on a dark tower to which nobody is granted access.

But she knows. She knows that Draco reads the letters and each one makes him angrier. His father apologises in the letters. He sounds like a sad old man, tired and regretful, and she knows it infuriates her son. How dare his father - his strong, invincible father - write to Draco, say sorry, write of guilt and regrets and despair? Lucius Malfoy, who had never apologised to anyone in his entire life, who had never asked forgiveness or showed a single crack of regret in his suit of armour. Draco hated him for it now, for the fact his father had faded away to a weak old man.

But Narcissa never tells her son or her husband her observations. She simply waits. And now, alone and waiting in a dusty manor, she knows with a mother's instinct that Draco is lost to her forever.

* * *

They are all smiling around him, smiling and talking and laughing like there is nothing, nothing but them and the stars and the sky and their youth, and it is all theirs, all of them, perfect and divine.

Divine.

The word rings in Harry's head, a sweetly bitter reminder of something.

Divine intervention.

Hermione used to talk about that. Hermione said she didn't believe in an interventionalist god. She didn't believe in any god. She said gods were irrational, illogical. Scientifically incorrect.

Harry likes the way Hermione says gods, makes it plural. Like there are many gods. Gods of everything. Gods big and small.

If Harry ever had a god, if he ever had someone who was inside his head and saw everything and knew where to guide him, Harry thinks it must have been a small god, yes. A small god for his generation. They were children of a lesser god.

He looks again, into the pretty lights and pretty faces. They're singing, they're calling out. Happy Birthday. George is smiling, thanking them. The scene seems strange, taken from a storybook. Harry tries to keep looking but it's all blurred and he is tired, oh, so tired, and he closes his eyes and he does not dream.

* * *

Rain runs down his face like falling stars, silver and brilliant in the night, illuminated by a glowing moon. His clothes cling damply, rough on his skin like gritty sand.

He can hear the waves from here. They are crashing in a perfect rhythm, like the heartbeat of the distant city, an echo of his own pulse.

Draco stands in the middle of the storm and he doesn't know why.

He doesn't know anything any more.

The blood throbs in his head, surges through his heart, heats up his face. He feels it like heavy lead in his veins and it only slows when he does, coming to a rest by the withered tree.

The dawn is overcast once more. Snow is expected. The water is choppy, the waves frothing, the sand clammy against his skin.

But there is no sign of Harry. No figure stands in the waves, no shadow wanders the shores.

Draco runs the length of the beach until everything aches. The dogwalker appears. A car door slams. A bus roars in the distance.

And still Draco runs.

* * *

"Do much training?"

Draco nods.

"Sprained knee. The muscles were over-exerted."

Draco stares listlessly as the doctor drones on, gently chiding him and recommending proper warm-ups and safe exercise programs. His training has just been set back at least two weeks.

And he doesn't care.

* * *

Draco's home is empty.

It is small. There is a long stretch of polished floorboards ending in a small galley kitchen. There's a toaster, an empty fruitbowl. There are two bedrooms. In his, there is a bed and a small set of drawers. In the other, there is a bed and a dresser. In the bathroom, there is a toothbrush, a razor, and a tube of toothpaste.

There is nothing else.

Sound always echoes in Draco's home, as though it isn't sure where to settle. It drifts around the rooms like a lonely lullaby.

He never makes much noise. Silence reigns.

His mother gave him a vase once. He placed it on top of the mantle, by the fireplace in the kitchen. It looks strange there, like a jigsaw piece that doesn't quite fit.

On cold winter days he sits by the fire and stares at the vase and thinks about putting it in a cupboard or giving it to a house that it will belong in. A house full of clutter and noise and other beautiful messes.

But he never does.

* * *

They yell at Harry. Words spill from their lips like slick bubbles, filling the sky with their prettiness. He tries to mime them.

_Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..._

It was just George's birthday the other week, and before that it was New Years. And Christmas.

But Harry doesn't want to think about Christmas.

So he smiles and mouths things wordlessly and lets the celebrations wash over him like a ceaseless tide, and he turns his face to the thin winter sunlight.

And still he is in darkness.

* * *

Strange, Harry thinks. How strange, the things he never knew.

That day in the ocean, when he walked into it and wanted to never look back. It's a lie, he thinks. They say some people don't care about life.

But oh, he cared about life that day. He saw every beautiful, lovely detail in even the ugliest of things. The grit in the cement, the cold sand seeping into his shoes. Those shells. He'll remember those forever, those lovely luminescent seashells, like the world's goodbye letter to him. He remembers all the cold, crisp details. He saw all the tiny things and he loved them that day, gave his heart away to the world. Such love, such care, such interest in the world, in this beautiful place.

And he walked into the ocean feeling nothing but love and beauty and a sadness so deep that he waited for his heart to be rendered apart, to burst into a thousand pieces and flutter away into the rising sun.

But he was dragged instead by rough hands onto clammy sand, back into a grey world, and he doesn't know whether he should hate Draco Malfoy or not.


	3. Sky

Draco slices the vegetables methodically. He listens to the quietness. The only noise is the chef's knife, clipping crisply against the chopping board. He pushes a tomato aside and reaches for a head of lettuce.

_Clip, clip clip._

A car goes past. Somebody drags out their rubbish bin. Draco listens to the awkward, clunking movements of it.

He does not own a radio, he does not own a television. He has to save up for it first. Draco works fiercely for everything. He works at an accountancy firm, as a receptionist. He takes calls and adds up numbers in neat little columns and he treats customers with just the right air of cool disapproval.

And then he goes to the gym and trains for two hours, and then he goes home and cooks something and reads the paper and goes to bed.

_Clip, clip, clip._

His mother tries to give him money. Galleons. Sickles. He pushes it away from him like its rubbish. He wants to work like a Muggle, live like a Muggle, be a Muggle. Muggles don't hiss at him. Muggles don't throw things at him. Muggles don't sneer and jeer and brand him a traitor.

There are words. Words that are missing from the Muggle dictionary. Draco searched its pages, once. There was nothing there. The word Pureblood was nowhere to be found. Nor was Dark Magic, or Dark Mark, or Unforgiveable. Draco decided, that day, to join the Muggle world and never look back.

Not even at his mother.

Especially not his father.

And never would he ever look back at Harry Potter.

* * *

Hermione is pushing the wilted flowers away from Ron's headstone. She is upset about them. She says nothing but Harry can tell she doesn't want them there. She wants his grave to look pretty all the time. Neville helps with clumsy hands, tucking away the limp laburnums, the browning lillies, the dead roses.

"I hate the way they clutter up his grave," Hermione says to Neville. "I wish people would clear away the flowers."

Neville nods. Harry murmurs and the two jump. Harry rarely speaks these days.

"I think it's nice," Harry says in a quiet voice.

Hermione looks away. Neville shifts uncomfortably. A rose remains in his open palm, fluttering like a ragged butterfly. Harry watches as the petals move like scarlet wings.

Harry closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he is alone. A cold wind stirs up rotting leaves, wetted by the winter snow. The rose cartwheels across the ground like a brilliant firework, a burst of colour in his icy world.

He watches the receding figures of Neville and Hermione and catches a flower in his palm, holding it tightly until its petals stain his palm a gentle pink, like a faded heart.

* * *

He is walking home. The pavement is slick and grey beneath his feet, the rain a steady roar in his ears. He fumbles with his umbrella and catches someone with his elbow as they wander past.

"Sorry," Draco says, half-turning. It's Harry. He isn't surprised. Harry just keeps on walking, the rain slowly darkening his clothes. Draco finds himself drifting towards him, like Harry has a gravitational pull.

"Potter," Draco shouts over the rain, catching Harry's sleeve, the words spilling from him uncontrollably, "Where are you going?"

Harry finally turns and looks at him. A smile blooms across his face and for a moment he looks positively luminous, his pale face seeming to glow against the dark rain like a beacon.

"I don't know," he says.

* * *

They sit in silence. Draco is trying to remember how Harry got here. Surely he didn't suggest it? Surely he didn't invite him in? Surely Harry should have laughed and walked away?

But Harry is standing in front of his fire. His soaked jacket hangs over the back of a chair. He gazes into the azure centre of a flame and does not speak.

Draco does not speak either. He watches, almost mesmerised, as droplets of rain slowly gather at the nape of Harry's neck, balancing delicately on the end of the dark strands of hair.

"I want to get away from the wizarding world," Draco sighs. "And then you come along and ruin it all. Are you punishing me?"

"Is this your house?" Harry asks, ignoring him. Draco nods curtly.

"It's nice," Harry says.

"It's nice?"

"It's quiet," Harry says and then he smiles, the soft smile of somebody who has just jumped off a bridge and seen exactly how beautiful the universe is in the second between life and death.

Draco closes his eyes and listens to the silence and it scares him in the same way it assures Harry.

* * *

They fuss over him. They are worried.

Where have you been? they demand. Where did you go?

But Harry does not give them answers. They do not deserve lies and the truth is too unbearable and so he says nothing.

And he goes to bed and dreams of a silent world, an empty world, where he floats through the oceans and walks the deserts alone.

And he wakes with a rose in his hand.

* * *

Draco sees Harry everywhere now.

He sees him sleeping on the trains, walking on the beach, buying strawberries at the shops. Harry likes strawberries, Draco notices. He buys them and walks along eating them, his lips staining red.

He doesn't notice Draco. He doesn't notice anyone. He drifts through the world like a tattered leaf, making meaningless patterns, spiralling away to destinations unknown.

Sometimes Draco wants to reach out and touch him, to stop him from floating away, to see if he is still real.

One day he does.

* * *

Harry sleeps on the trains. He doesn't sleep much at night. The night is for the thoughts to come and slither through his mind like shadows.

He wakes once because somebody has touched him. A hand flutters at his shoulder. He looks up into Draco Malfoy's face.

Draco doesn't apologise or offer an explanation. He merely stares at Harry and then he says, "I didn't know you caught the 6:55 to Upfield."

"I caught the first train," Harry says.

"The first train where? Draco asks.

"Anywhere," Harry replies. He stands on station platforms an inch from the trains and feels them rush past his face and watches the people come and go and sometimes he goes with them, sometimes he doesn't.

Draco doesn't say anything. He seems to understand.

Harry feels different, somehow.

A little closer to earth.

He watches two people get off the train and because he likes odd numbers, he joins them.

Draco frowns and picks up something from Harry's seat.

A jacket, sodden in seawater.

* * *

Draco holds Harry's damp jacket uncomfortably. He gazes up at the street sign.

Peppermint Drive.

He imagines the redheaded girl laughing with Harry across a table, perhaps a small child or two between them. The child would have Harry's eyes and Ginny's hair and everyone would be smiling. The thought makes Draco feel sick in the stomach, a strange shifting feeling that he hates.

He pulls out Harry's driver's licence. 21 Peppermint Drive.

Number twenty-one is nothing like he imagines.

Every light on the house is on. It's like some sort of lighthouse sending secret signals out into the dark, mysterious night. Silhouettes move. There are far too many of them, like there are people everywhere, strange figures dancing through the halls. Too many shadows, Draco thinks, and he knocks on the door.

It's the hardest thing he's ever done, standing there whilst Hermione Granger glares at him. She snaps something through the crack in the door. Ginny is behind her, an incredulous expression on her face. They're both shouting something.

And then Harry appears, melting through the door. He is darkness in the light, like a piece of the night escaping to float back into the sky, to join the stars again.

"Draco Malfoy," he says, and Hermione and Ginny subside into silent rages. Ginny puts a hand on Harry's arm then takes it off again almost as though she is afraid of him. Hermione retreats, red-eyed. Harry and Draco are left alone on the front porch.

"Your jacket," Draco says, holding it out. "I found your drivers licence in the pocket. I couldn't find your wallet though."

"The sea can have it," Harry says in a low, quiet voice.

They sit in silence. The moon waits above them, heavy and perfectly round, slowly rising into the sky.

"Got a party happening?" Draco asks, glancing through a window. The shadows tumble around. Music echoes faintly.

"They are always here," Harry says.

He leaves then. Somebody is calling his name. Draco gazes through the window. Everyone is in the room.

Except Harry.

Oh, he's there, standing in the middle of it all, standing there as people move around him.

But he is substantial as a ghost, as real as a phantom.

He is not there.

And Draco fancies that if he turned and stared out into the ocean, he would see the real Harry standing there, waiting for his world to end.

* * *

His heart is still.

If Harry closes his eyes and just lets himself go, he can see his heart, still and silent in his chest. His chest does not rise and fall. His pulse slows as though his blood is treacle.

And when he opens his eyes again, he sees the world so vividly, all the colours and shapes and beautiful mess, and he considers why his heart doesn't collapse with the wonder of it all.

* * *

Draco quits work.

He doesn't announce it, doesn't hand in a letter to his manager or call or anything.

He simply goes outside one day for his lunch break and he eats a punnet of strawberries by the fountain in the city park. And the sun is brilliant, a promise for the first day of spring, and he sees everything. The tiny rainbows reflecting off the fountain, the way the stones are flecked with dark water, the way the sun is warm and heavy on him like the embrace of an old friend. Each strawberry is bursting with sweetness and he looks down at his scarlet-stained fingertips after he's finished the last one.

Everything is perfect. Yes. Right now, here, every place, every world, every me, he thinks.

And he stands up and walks into the sunshine and does not look back.

* * *

Harry stands at the water's edge. It is calm and gentle. Spring's moodiness has long subsided into a mellow summer.

"Are you going to walk into there?"

Harry does not turn. Draco stands beside him and says nothing. Harry stares into the horizon, his eyes narrowed. The sun illuminates every pore on his face, every mark and freckle and flaw on his body. He smiles.

"No," he says at last. "No, I don't think so."

They stand in silence for a while.

"I wish I'd never seen you that day," Draco says at last. "My life was perfect until you."

Harry says nothing and bewildered anger arcs through Draco's chest like an arrow.

"I had everything," he says. "I had a Muggle job and a nice house and I'm training to be an Auror and everything was exactly how I wanted it!"

He shouts the last bit. It echoes down the beach. Draco has never yelled before. His temper is always cold and controlled and this new wild anger scares him.

Harry does not respond for some time. Draco is ready to strike him when he finally speaks.

"If you're so desperate to be a Muggle," he says, "why do you want to become an Auror?"

"Because," Draco says tightly, "I was always going to be one, since I was small. I've always wanted to be one."

"Except now you don't," Harry says, and he walks away.

* * *

Draco stands for some time, alone in the sand. The tide begins to froth around his shoes.

_Except now you don't._

Draco can understand why Harry woke up one day and walked into the ocean.

_Except now you don't._

_Except now you don't want to be an Auror._

_Except now you don't hate Harry Potter._

_Except now you don't want to have a nine to five job and go to the gym and own a nice home and be like every other Muggle in the world._

_Except now you don't want your life._

* * *

Draco feels like a mirror that has been shattered. He picks up pieces of himself to try and see but there is nothing there. Just reflections of a world he doesn't want.

He picks up the vase his mother gave him and stares at it for a long time, at the lovely blue curves and glossiness of it.

Then he drops it, deliberately.

Pieces of a perfect world.

* * *

Harry comes in at dawn.

He stands in the hall and hears the familiar clink of cutlery in the breakfast room and he closes his eyes and leans against the wall like a faded painting. He isn't there.

He's never there.

He opens his eyes.

* * *

Draco notices Harry is always on the 6:55 to Upfield these days. He watches Harry open his eyes. He doesn't blink. He just opens them wearily, slowly, as though he is reluctant to see the world. As though he knows what it will bring and he wants to stay in his mind forever.

"There's too many people," Draco says quietly. Harry turns and looks at him. The train sways round a corner.

Harry nods.

Draco sits next to Harry and he finds himself spilling it all out, telling Harry everything. His dreams to be an Auror. His job that he quit. Pansy's letters. His mother's visits. His torn tendon that slowed his training. His empty home with the broken vase in the middle of the floor.

He sits on the 6:55 Upfield and tells Harry Potter the map of his mind and heart.

And at the very end, Harry opens his eyes and looks directly at Draco. Not in a dazed way, not in a glazed way, but his eyes are brilliant and burning like green flames and Draco's breath catches.

Harry is finally there. He isn't in the ocean any more.

"I think you should see your father," he says, and then he closes his eyes.

Draco did not mention his father once, not once.

But Harry knows. The silences, the empty spaces, told him more than any words Draco said.

* * *

And Harry knows what he must do.

He comes in at dawn. He hears the clink of cutlery, the murmur of voices.

He walks in, this time. He walks in and looks at Hermione and Ginny and Neville and George and all the rest of them, eating and talking and making him into a ghost. A ghost.

He walks up to Hermione. She does not notice him.

He lays a warm hand on her arm and still she laughs and talks. Her ghost Harry isn't there.

"Hermione," he says quietly. "I think it's time you left."

The noise dies away. The movements still. Harry feels his heart slowing down again. He is calm, he is still and soft and silent like the inevitable dawn.

He closes his eyes and he wishes for a rose to give to her, a beautiful rose to bring a smile to her face and make the pain fade from her lovely eyes.

She takes his hand.

He opens his eyes.

"I know," she says. "I'm sorry, Harry. Oh God, I'm sorry."

And they know, they know that they weren't there for each other. Ron's grave was always between them, making them alone in their grief.

And they hold each other and Hermione packs her bags and orders everyone to leave with her. By nightfall Harry is alone.

He stands alone in his silent house and he feels his heart melt into the silence and darkness and he feels okay. Just okay.

But it is enough.

* * *

Draco dreams.

He dreams of bronzed, salty skin and sun and all the perfect places, the smooth curve of a collarbone and the soft expense of velvety skin on a back and ruby lips stained with strawberries.

He wakes with a heat he cannot ignore, a wildfire consuming his heart.

* * *

Harry can talk to Ron now without the others around. They took up all the space in his home, his life, his head. Now he has space. He unpacks the suitcases in the attic of his mind, he looks at the maps and unravels the dusty spools of memories.

He tells Ron he understands why he did it.

"And you called me a hero," he reprimands, sitting in his willow tree. "Who was playing hero that day? Saving a little girl from getting hit by a car. It doesn't get any more heroic than that, you stupid git. Did you rescue cats from trees too, carry damsels away from fire?"

He can almost see Ron laughing at him, saying _you would've done it too mate, don't give me that..._

"I see the little girl sometimes. She comes down to the beach early and walks her dog," Harry says. "She's got red hair just like yours, did you know that?"

Yes. Ron would remember. The last thing he had seen, five months ago on Christmas Day. He would've felt her soft mittens in his hand, seen her brilliant hair splaying across the snow like a rose blooming. Harry wonders if Ron knew she survived, if before he died he knew in his heart that her pulse raced, her heart beat, her lips drew breath. That somebody's daughter would grow up and learn and live and love and he would die.

Up in his willow tree, hidden from the universe, Harry smiles beautifully into the canopy of leaves.

* * *

He runs a hand along the stone, feeling mortar crumble between his fingertips. Cold radiates from it and he withdraws his hand, feeling almost tainted by the low temperature, and thrusts it deep into his pocket.

There is silence. Draco expected noise but it is completely silent. Somewhere, water plinks. The footsteps of the guard echoes heavily, his gait awkward and stumping.

Draco gazes at his feet, concentrating on placing them precisely in a line as he walks. He falls into a pattern and startles when noise rings out, a quick clamour of sound: the guard is running his baton along metal bars.

"Oi, you! Prisoner D10332. Get up. Visitors."

Draco holds his breath and slowly walks to stand by the guard.

His father gazes at him. He is small as if he has shrunken somehow, as though prison has taken away his flesh and bone too. His hair is short. Shadows smudge his eyes.

"Draco?" Lucius says. His voice is hoarse.

"Hello," Draco says uncomfortably, unsure of what to do. Lucius seems to catch his uncertainty and does not mention his son's long absence, his lack of replies to Lucius's sad letters.

"My dear son," Lucius says. "Your mother tells me you're happy?"

Draco falls into conversation as easily as falling asleep in his childhood bed. The two Malfoys talk long into the day.

* * *

Harry lazes in the afternoon sun like a warm cat, stretching and yawning. Dappled shadows play against his skin and he thinks its been ages since he greeted the day like this. He is used to his dark sacred nights. But now his shadows dissipate with the morning dew, and the sun illuminates him, every lovely flaw. He smiles, the sun dazzling him, dazzling the world and he knows summer is here. In England and in his heart.

* * *

Draco unfolds the letter.

_Dear Mr Malfoy,_

_We are writing to inform you that your application was unsuccessful due to the following reason:_

_Torn tendon in left knee. Does not pass medical._

_We remind you that you may re-apply during next year's intake._

_Regards,_

_Mathilda Wandsworth_

_Head of Magical Defence_

Draco stands alone in his kitchen. A piece of blue vase glints under his foot. He considers everything.

Then he books a one-way trip to France.

He leaves in a week.

* * *

The summer storms are coming in and it's on a quickly darkening afternoon that Draco goes to 21 Peppermint Drive.

Draco gazes at the house and walks forwards. This last thing he must do.

He has sold all he owns, he has ended his lease, he has quit his job and packed his bags and the ticket waits in his pocket, hot and heavy like a sun-warmed stone.

On the winding garden path near a trail of white roses and wisteria is Harry. He stands silently in the shadows of the gathering storm as though he has been waiting for Draco. Standing guard for him.

Draco steps forward.

"Harry," he says in a strange thin voice, "Harry, I can't be an Auror."

Harry winds a thin black ribbon around his wrist and says nothing. Overheard, storm clouds gather.

"I don't want to be one either," Draco continues. "I don't know what I want to do, except...just leave. I've booked a ticket to Paris." Draco can suddenly feel everything; the cracked, uneven path beneath his feet, the hot breath of a summer about to snap. It blows at the hairs on the nape of his neck and he closes his eyes.

"You're not coming back," Harry says, looking up at him. He is smiling in a strange sort of way, as though he has been staring at a speck and it is only now, when he leans back, he realises it is part of a masterpiece.

"Yes," Draco says. "Don't ask me why. I just need to leave."

"I know." Harry twists the ribbon and Draco stares at his hands, the long clever fingers and the delicately curved spaces between them. If he could place his hand into Harry's, it would fit like a puzzle piece.

Draco shoves his hands deep into his pockets.

There is a long silence. Harry finally looks up at the other man.

"Thankyou," he says. Unexpected words from his strawberry-stained lips. "I don't think I want to walk underwater."

"Not now?" Draco asks.

"Not now," Harry replies. "Not ever, perhaps." He smiles again, the gentle dreamy smile. "Of all the people in the world," he murmurs, almost to himself. "I fall in love with you."

The hot breath of summer tightens its grip on Draco's throat. In the distance, thunder rolls over the ocean. The waves fade away from the shore and the sky darkens. Draco's eyes suddenly seem to match everything - the stormy skies, the rough ocean, the grey pavement darkening with rain. A white rose captures droplets, the petals outstretched like a milky white palm.

"You can come with me," Draco says quickly. "You can come with me and -"

But Harry is shaking his head.

"No," he says quietly. "My place is here."

"Then I'll stay," Draco says, his mind churning like the sky overhead. "I can find another place and a job and I can stay and we'll...we'll..." He stops. Harry takes Draco's hand and slowly entwines the ribbon through his fingertips, like a silken cobweb of shadows.

"If there's one thing you taught me," Harry says, "it is that there's a time and a place for everything, and it's not now."

Draco looks at the empty house. He imagines Harry speaking up in that same intense voice, telling his friends to leave.

"But it's not fair," Draco whispers. Rain illuminates his hair against the fall of stormy night.

"I know."

The two of them stand in the garden and watch the lightning crack the sky, illuminate the ocean, tear the stars apart. It's the loveliest thing they've ever seen and it's made all the sweeter by the fact that they are exalting in it together. Harry smiles as the thunder rolls over the beach in exact motion with the waves.

Draco walks away and he breaks the rules of all the stories by looking back.

Harry is standing there, smiling in the rain and lightning and thunder, looking at Draco. He stretches out his arms.

"Don't forget me!" he calls, and his voice carries clear over the storm.

Never, Draco thinks. Never. Not now, not ever.

And then he turns and walks into the silver rain, and his heart bursts with something he hasn't felt since he was five years old and his father was picking him up and swinging him over puddles.

He looks up into the rushing rain, a gift from the skies. For a second he can't breathe.

And beneath the raging sky, two hearts break and mend in a moment.


End file.
